Saturday, September 6, 2014

Innocence

Writer/Director Hilary
Brougher’s Innocence falls under the horror genre, but horrible would be
more apt.

The story of Beckett
Warner (Sophie Curtis) starts with the abrupt death of her mother (Kelly
Bensimon) while surfing.What happened? It’s not until an hour or
so into the movie that we told she had an aneurism.

No matter. The result is her father (Linus Roache) puts
her in Hamilton, a Manhattan prep school, where Pamela Hamilton (Kelly Reilly)
is the nurse.But, is that all she is?No.She and a circle of women are actually over 150 years old, surviving
quite well on the blood of virgin students.

This, of course, comes out
gradually within the glacial pace of the film.This pace is made excruciating by the listless demeanor of Sophie
Curtis, who is talented and was probably directed to be that way.Seriously, you could bring your knitting and
make a sweater waiting for something to happen.Or, learn to knit without worrying about missing anything.

And, of course, there is the
cliché “f!*# you” ending of bad horror movies, unintentionally laughable as
Beckett destroys the witches only to inherit their spirit.

If it weren’t for the really
fine cinematography of David Rush Morrison and the fact Kelly Reilly is
incredibly pleasing to look at, this film would be a complete dud.

About Me

Brian Porzak: I am a cinephile who likes to view films with a live audience. My taste runs the gamut, including indies, studio films, foreign films and most all genres. Because I see so many films, friends often ask me what to see. So, I thought I'd blog about what is worth seeing or not. As a writer/filmmaker myself, I hope to give a more uplifting perspective than the typical critic. Filmmaking is tremendously difficult. Just because some problems might exist in a particular work does not, necessarily, destroy its enjoyability and I think that is necessary to point out to would-be viewers.
See www.Aix-en-Film.com